Teach Them to Bite
by anarhichas
Summary: They decide that Armin, if useless in everything else, might make a good enough dog. [non-con, underage, bestiality]


Armin doesn't know where they took the idea from – at his age, it is inconceivable. But when they find him, as they always do, and run him down, as they always do, they are ready with everything they need.

This time there is just Karl, Otto, and Marie. Karl is holding a collar and length of rope and Marie's arms are like sticks against the shaggy, muscled neck of one of her father's dogs, that he hunts deer and boar with. The dog pants. Marie's teeth in her grin look far more dangerous.

Otto takes Armin by the back of his shirt and drags him out of town, down into the copse by the river where none of the adults go. Armin struggles. He has no idea what's about to happen, but long experience tells him that he doesn't want it. He thinks that perhaps they will let him go and the dog will hunt him, catch him and bite him till he's bleeding and broken. He thinks that maybe they'll kill him this time.

It doesn't explain the collar or rope. It doesn't explain why they kick him down to his hands and knees after stripping him naked.

Karl attaches the collar. It's heavy and obtrusive, like it's strangling even though it's not; the metal buckle is cold and the leather slightly damp. It's a choke collar, and the rope, slack for now, swings from Otto's hand. The ground is rough with little stones and sharp twigs that bite into Armin's hands, knees and shins. It's damp and dirty and Armin curls into a ball, face-down. His heart is beating like a bird caught in netting. There's a cold breeze against his bare skin.

'Please,' he says, quietly, because he can't help it even if he knows it will do no good. 'Please don't.' He flinches when Marie's boot finds his thigh, and the collar tightens around his neck for a second, then loosens.

'Shut up!' It's Marie. 'You're a dog now. You're our stupid dog and dogs can't talk!'

'We're just paying you back for what Mikasa did,' Otto says. His voice is strangely high, and rushed. 'So – so maybe you'll know for next time. But now you're just a dog so you're not allowed to speak.'

For a moment, Armin is shocked into silence. Then, the same shock overcoming his fear, he lifts his head. 'You can't do that!' he says, as if they only need to hear the truth before they realise it and let him go. There are tears in his eyes, messing up his vision. 'I'm human – we're all human! We're not even meant to be fighting each other!'

'Shut up! I told you to shut up!' Marie grabs the rope and pulls, tightening the collar. Armin can still talk, and breathe, so he says: 'I won't! I'm not a dog!'

Marie yanks the collar again, and at the same time uses her boot at the back of his neck to force his face to the ground. Very suddenly he can't breathe at all. Leaves and dirt get in his mouth and eyes. Armin kicks and rolls, prying at the collar. Seconds pass, then more, then enough that he starts to think she's going to kill him right there and then. Then the animal panic takes over and he can't think at all.

When she does let go his eyes are streaming and painful. Armin coughs, fingers around the collar, but he doesn't try take it off and doesn't try to say anything. His throat feels like its on fire, and he doesn't think he could speak even if he knew what to say. He swallows, but every swallow is as strangling as the collar, and soon he's coughing worse and worse. He can weather this out, he tells himself, as he gasps and cries into the damp brown leaf-litter. He can. He'll be brave. Out of the corner of his eyes he can see Marie's dog, tied to a young tree, with its eyes bright, alert, and directly on him. Its mouth is open.

There is a long pause while Armin slowly recovers on his hands and knees, and Marie, Otto and Karl stand around him, as if no one quite knows what to do next. Eventually Armin's breathing calms. The roaring in his ears quieter, Armin feels his skin prickle with the cold. Then there is the sound of fabric rustling and he jolts back as something small is tossed to the ground in front of him. It's a slice of salted meat, washed but still raw. Crumbs of broken leaf stick to it.

'Eat it, dog,' Marie commands. 'No hands, or else.'

Armin is tired; he puts his face down to the ground and eats.

Afterwards there's a bad taste on his tongue and a sick feeling in his chest from wanting too hard for the same old worn-out things: strength, courage, friends who are always there to save him, and everything else he doesn't have. The humiliation has set into his bones and he can't bring himself to care. He tries to remember the clever and cutting things he'd thought up since the last time, but they're gone as if they'd never existed at all.

'Good dog,' Marie says. Otto's hand finds its way to Armin's head, patting him, fingers threading through his tangled hair and scratching his scalp gently.

'Good dog,' Otto says. 'See? You're a good dog.'

Armin starts to cry. Otto tugs him close, so that Armin's head is pressed to his thighs, and strokes Armin's neck and bare upper back. 'C'mon,' he says, words soft. 'Don't do that. There's a good boy. There's a good boy.'

Armin only cried even harder. His fingers curl into the dirt and scratch themselves on the little stones there. It's not a good distraction – the warmth of Otto's skin through his trousers is an unwelcome, eerie comfort.

'Hey,' Otto says. 'Marie, d'you have any more of the food?' Then a pause, then fingers and more salted meat are at his mouth, pressing lightly at his lips. 'C'mon, boy. Here we go.'

Thoughts dull, Armin opens his mouth and takes it, chews and swallows. 'Oi,' Marie says. 'Not meant to hand-feed dogs.'

'What? Why not?' Armin's eyes are still closed, but he feels the hand slide back into his hair.

'They'll think your hand means food, so you'll just teach them to bite you. Fucking stupid.'

Otto seems to contemplate this for a couple of seconds. 'Huh, alright then,' he says, and there is a quiet rustle of something falling onto the ground. 'Okay, boy, no more hand-feeding.'

Armin doesn't move, until the hand on his head starts to push down. Then he bends and eats. He's trembling as Otto pulls him back up to rest against his thighs.

'Hey dog, you like that?' Marie's grin is audible in her voice. 'Say something. Bark!'

Armin's throat is stuck like there's something wedged inside. It still hurts from when he'd been choked earlier. Would Eren bark? No, of course not. Mikasa wouldn't. Why should he, then?

'Bark!' Marie is no longer grinning.

Armin isn't Eren or Mikasa. He doesn't know how to be them. So he barks, a rough, high-pitched _arf arf_ that sounds so utterly ridiculous it makes him want to laugh and cry at the same time – or sink into the ground and die in the darkness without anyone seeing. The third bark gets a little easier, sounds a little more natural. The fourth is slightly better again. He doesn't try a fifth.

'See!' Marie is triumphant. 'Knew he'd be a good dog. 'S the only thing you're good at, right, dog?' She bends and ruffles Armin's hair. 'Don't know why you ever tried to be anything else.'

Otto laughs as he runs a hand up and down Armin's body, patting and slapping his sides, but never hard enough to hurt. 'You really are! Aren't you, boy? You're a good dog.'

Armin leans his head into the warmth of Otto's legs. He's cold.

'Hey...' It's Karl. Armin had almost forgotten he was there at all. 'Weren't you going to… you know? You're still going to?'

'Yeah, yeah,' Marie says, and lets go of Armin's head. Her tone is flat all of a sudden. 'Karl, got the knife?'

Suddenly Armin is alert, as if jolting awake from dozing. One of Otto's hands tightens in Armin's hair, the other grips his collar and holds him still. 'Shhh,' he says. 'Shhh. It's okay, dog. It's not for you.'

Armin can't help but press himself against Otto when he sees the serrated knife Karl has, a long and sharp thing. His head is pounding and he is very aware of the weight of the collar around his neck. Karl ignores him and kneels next to a sapling a few feet away, trunk no wider than his wrist, and starts sawing at it about a foot from the ground. The sound is loud – so is Armin's panting. Otto curls the rope connected to the collar around one fist, until it's all wound up but not yet tight enough to strangle, and tugs Armin along to the ragged new tree stump, positioning him until the stump is underneath Armin's belly and Armin's face is two inches from the trunk of a much larger tree. Then Otto loops the rope around the larger tree and ties it there securely.

On his hands and knees, Armin isn't touching the stump so long as he doesn't try to sit or lie down, and he can breathe easily enough if he doesn't pull away from the tree he's tied to. He resists the urge to touch his collar or the tree with his hands, instead getting a firm grip of the roots beneath him. He can't see anyone – they're all standing behind him. The air all over his body – the loss of touch – makes him feel distressingly empty.

Otto and Marie are muttering. Armin turns his head as far as he can and strains to hear. He can feel something like a whine build in his lungs, but holds it back.

'Have you got the…? How do we…?'

'Yes, here. Fuck's sake, just use your hand. Like this...'

'Is this really going to work?'

'Better do. Shit, be rougher than that. You have a flower for a dick or something?.'

'Shut – shut up! Anyway, how'd you know so much? You do this all the time or something?'

'Shut it, shit-face, or that'll be down your throat instead. … alright, done? Get it over there then.'

Armin shuffles forward as far as he can without strangling himself. His throat is dry and tender. Both words and the sound of barking mix up on his tongue, spilling together.

He jumps as Marie appears at his head, crouching down to grip the collar and choke him mercilessly. 'Listen up, dog,' she says as he struggles. 'You try to speak, I'll make you regret it. That clear?'

Armin sucks in massive, painful breaths when she lets go. 'So, dog, what do you say?'

Armin looks at the ground, her feet in his peripheral vision as he barks: _arf, arf_ , rough and raw as the coughs at the end of a long illness. He thinks he might be sick. His arms and legs feel shaky.

There's fur brushing against the backs of his thighs. It's not unpleasant, and Armin doesn't move from it. He still doesn't understand what is happening.

Then the dog mounts him, thrusts into him, and the air is knocked from Armin's lungs – he can't breath any more than when Marie had used the collar. The pain spills over his body and into his head, cutting away all coherent thought, like throwing sand on an old fire. The dog continues to thrust, hard and fast, claws scratching his waist. It feels like he's been split open with an axe.

Seconds pass and Armin draws a ragged breath. It escapes in a wail. He claws at the tree in front of him, fingers scrabbling at the rope, but the knot is on the other side of the trunk and out of reach. He tries to fall down, away from the dog, but the stump prevents him. It digs into his belly, sharp and sticky with sap. He doesn't understand why the dog is doing this. He don't understand why it feels so terrible.

Words and screams and the weight of Marie's hand at his collar twist about in his head. Armin opens his mouth, but the only things that emerge are barks and whines and pathetic gasps. He can't speak. The dog is still thrusting, its hind legs pressed against his, its body hot and heavy and powerful. Armin can't get away. He crawls forwards, but the dog only follows and now he's pulled tight against the collar and can only choke in thin, insufficient amounts of air, and nowhere left to go while the dog still pounds into him like a knife in his insides.

He's sobbing, red-faced, gasping, open-mouthed. Saliva dribbles down his chin. There's a desperation and horrific sense of exposure that he's never felt before, a vulnerability and sickness infesting his guts that makes all other pain seem gentle. There is agony. There is also betrayal, and the thought that creeps in unannounced: _but they said I was a good dog_.

He can't tell how long it goes on for. Inside his head he's begging for it to end – he doesn't have the breath for anything but whistling gasps. The dog stops, but only to readjust its position before starting again. Armin's face is pressing into the tree trunk, and the rough bark hurts. The collar tightens again as he tries to scramble away from the dog, closing around his throat, but he can't not try to escape. He turns his head, hands braced against the tree, and suddenly he can't breathe at all.

Sound gradually dims, until its just his own blood rushing to the tap-tap-tap of his heart. He screws shut his eyes. They feel like they might burst with the pressure behind them. The forest floor and the cold sweat on his skin fades away. He is still in unbearable agony. He wants to throw up but can't. Is he dying? He doesn't want to die. Armin struggles. He doesn't want to die.

Then he can breathe again, like hitting the ground after falling. His head is spinning; his throat and lungs are on fire. Every breath is swallowing gravel. Armin gasps and gags and can't seem to get enough air. There is something wrong. Otto is standing at his head, the rope loose in his hands, the collar now slack. The dog is still behind him, pressed against and into him, but it's not moving any more.

Without the collar holding him up, Armin slumps to the ground. His cheek is pressed to a root, forehead to dirty, broken leaves. A twig pokes into his open mouth. His hips are held up by the stump digging into his stomach – his legs have gone boneless.

The dog is still but something is else happening now, a swelling that stretches out his insides.

'There we go, dog,' Otto says. His hand is in Armin's hair and Armin doesn't have the strength to shake it off, only lie there and take it. 'That's the worst of it. Well done.' His voice is gentle; so are his hands as he takes Armin by his waist and lifts him up off the stump and onto the ground beside it.

Armin doesn't have the strength to flinch when the dog growls. It's still in him, pulled along as he'd been moved, and the feeling of that makes his stomach clench with disgust. Why is it still in him? It's stuck? Will it be stuck in him until he dies? The idea weaves through his brain, soaking into other thoughts, and holding it back is like holding back spilt water. He can't think logically. His breathing still rasps, never enough. He feels like he's been running for hours and hours, non-stop. His skin is flushed as if with fever – the sweat that drips down his nose and across his open lips is cold.

The dog shifts position and the movement tugs at him. Distantly, Armin thinks that the feeling of being gutted would be preferable to that little tug.

Time passes. Otto's hand remains on him, sometimes on his head, sometimes across his back or shoulders. Armin can't see where Marie or Karl are. His breathing has finally calmed, but he's shivering violently. The wind that had felt cool earlier is now icy and violent. He wants very much to be sick but cannot manage it. The dog is still there, still inside him, and Armin's shivering makes the stretch and pressure and pain of it inescapable.

How much longer? Or will it really last until he's dead?

Armin is crying again; he can't tell when he'd started this time. His head pounds with thirst. Above him Otto is making shushing noises, his hand rubbing circles on the small of Armin's back. The feeling of fur makes Armin want to pull his own skin off, sheets and sheets of it until there's none left.

More time and no one moves, save Otto's hand. Then the dog pulls out and steps away, disappearing before Armin quite realises anything is happening to begin with. He can feel his own arse gape open, stretched, suddenly exposed to the freezing air. Seconds pass and he doesn't react. He can't find any relief.

'You sure he'll be okay?' Otto is saying as he stands up, his hand finally leaving Armin's skin. 'The blood...'

'Seriously? That's nothing.'

'Well, if you're sure. Huh, I almost want to keep him… we could build a kennel out here or something...'

'The fuck you on? ...'

Armin covers his ears with the palms of his hands. His eyes are closed as hard as he can make them. He doesn't open them for a long time, but when he does, he's alone.

He looks for his clothes. They're not there. He tries to stand but a stabbing pain drives him back down to his hands and knees. Armin's hands are trembling as he feels his throat. It's burning hot. _I'm not a dog_ , he wants to say _. I'm not a dog_. The words are there in his head, fully formed, almost tangible. The same words tangle up as they travel through his throat, coming to a stop behind his tongue, and Armin thinks wildly that he'll never be able to speak again. He tells himself it can't be true, that of course it's stupid. He doesn't dare try, just in case.


End file.
